1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of flocked or pile type fabrics. More particularly it concerns a fabric carrying raised fibers and having a highly porous structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Flocked fabrics and methods for preparing such have been known to the art for some time. One of the major disadvantages with such flocked fabrics is that they have found limited use because of their stiff hand and relative impermeability to gases and moisture.
Such fabrics normally comprise three layers, a backing fabric layer, an adhesive interlayer and a flocked layer of upstanding fibers. Because of the nature of the adhesive interlayer, i.e., the adhesive used spreads over the backing layer in a continuous film, this layer constitutes essentially a gas or moisture impermeable barrier. For this reason, flocked fabrics have heretofore only been used in relatively heavy fabrics in the apparel field.
Additionally, attempts to flock shear fabrics, particularly knits, to produce relatively permeable flocked fabrics have been unsuccessful because of the dimensional instability of such fabrics during the flocking process.